


The Devil's Kiss

by Scythe



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Killlers, Felix Hugo Fraldarius Being an Asshole, M/M, Psychopaths In Love, Questionable interpretation of 'flirting', Serial Killer Sylvain, Spicy...food
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-29 18:29:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21414697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scythe/pseuds/Scythe
Summary: “You look like you’re about one and a half squeaks of an ungreased wheel from stabbing someone,” he remarks with no small smidgen of ironic amusement—after all, who is the philanderer millionaire serial killer misanthropist here? Not Felix.Sylvain is a serial killer pickup artist. He picks up the wrong person. Shenanigans ensue.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 132





	The Devil's Kiss

The Devil is his patron saint.

Sylvain boasts a lavish portion of what many would call ‘the Devil’s charm,’ but the cornerstone of this charisma comes with the conscience (specifically, a lack thereof) to use it.

He surmises that was how he had convinced his newest date to go to the funfair with him, despite being too inebriated the night he met Felix Somethingorother to remember how his alcohol-addled brain managed to pull it off. The important part, though, is that he did, and he isn’t going to question the Devil’s sense of humor.

There is an aphorism about how people look better when you’re drunk, but Felix’s finer features were wasted in the dark intoxicated haze of the pub. Daylight accentuates the casual arrogance of his practiced glower, lucent amber surveying his surroundings with detached scorn. Though most of his hair is tied back, some of it falls carelessly around his face in soft dark locks. A narrow, jagged scar strikes like lightning across the left quarter of his lips, piquing Sylvain’s curiosity as they press thin in an impatient frown. _Beautiful_, Sylvain thinks, _perfection_, except…

“Why did you take me here?” Felix grumbles caustically as a clown on a unicycle juggling four balls pedals in front of them and they’re forced to wait for it to jingle slowly across. “I knew I shouldn’t have let a drunk imbecile choose the location.”

This must be the Devil’s next move in their great ongoing game, a trick of give and take where no blessing comes without a test. No master of mischief would be so generous without a caveat of tribulations; Sylvain never expects a perfect ten to have an _agreeable_ _personality_.

“Are we comfortable enough for pet names already?” he teases. “The key word, though, is ‘let.’ I suggested something more interesting than sitting around in some coffee shop, and you _agreed_.” He draws out the last syllable, artfully pitched to be the most infuriating harmony of a whine and a taunt.

“I only agreed because my work was suddenly…canceled, and I had nothing better to do on short notice.” His hands fall from his hips and he crosses his arms, annoyance in the line of his posture. “You’re a last resort.”

“Ouch,” Sylvain hums cheerily.

_HONK_, the clown toots in farewell as the single wheel of the unicycle squeaks unsteadily away, every creak causing Felix to look a shade more murderous.

Sylvain drapes a cavalier arm over Felix’s shoulder and leads him further into the bustling center of the fair. “You look like you’re about one and a half squeaks of an ungreased wheel from stabbing someone,” he remarks with no small smidgen of ironic amusement—after all, who is the philanderer millionaire serial killer misanthropist here? Not Felix.

“I am,” Felix retorts, though he settles back into haughty indifference. “I hate clowns.” He glances at Sylvain’s encroaching arm and chooses not to comment.

They wander past tightly packed rows of vendors; materialism and superficiality inundate the stalls in garish distractions designed to be eye-catching but empty of substance. Sylvain _loathes_ it. Yet there is something to be said about the way Felix commands his attention away from the usual resentment, exotically monochrome amid the nauseating colors and noise.

Sylvain’s height—and Felix’s inability to close the first button of his shirt—gives him a lascivious angle down the curve of the finely boned jaw, down the slender ivory neck, down to where the dip of the clavicle peeks enticingly out of the matte shirt collar. The turn of Felix’s head exposes a swath of delicately pulsing skin that bares sinfully pale against the soft blacks of his hair and clothes, and Sylvain has to resist the bubbling impulse to _do something_ to it. _It’s a good shade against blood_, he observes offhandedly, a stray thought unbidden but not unwelcome.

“You’re staring,” Felix accuses without looking.

“So I am. Take it as a compliment,” Sylvain suggests shamelessly, slipping his arm off Felix’s shoulder and wrapping it around his waist instead. Felix’s entire frame stiffens, but he again makes no attempt to break away from the touch. Posturing as cold and unapproachable aside, he shows invitingly little resistance to the quick escalation in these physical transgressions, and Sylvain interprets that as permission to keep pushing. It’s not an exciting date unless he gets slapped, right?

“Has anyone told you how beautiful you are?” Sylvain compliments before cringing inwardly at how lame it sounds off his tongue. Ungainly sincerity has chosen this inopportune moment to cripple his finely-honed skill at flattery. “God, you look great today.”

The _attempt_ at flirtation nonetheless seems to tickle some secret amusement; Felix languidly loosens his shoulders and his spine relaxes by degrees as he leans to flick his gaze up towards Sylvain, just shy of connecting, but Sylvain catches the gleam of scintillating fire between the dark lashes.

“No god down here,” Felix offers with all the magnetic guile of a snake in the grass. “Only me.”

The snap of his inflection from sarcastic to devious is electric, and Sylvain suddenly realizes he’s in danger of drooling. He swallows a remarkably copious amount of his own saliva. “Are you hungry? I’m ravenous, and I smell something delicious…”

Luckily for him, they are in fact close enough to the food area to catch a whiff of meat and spices. “If I wasn’t before, I am now,” Felix acquiesces.

Despite what the sensationalist headlines say about the individual responsible for the murders Sylvain committed, violence is neither the main appeal nor final goal of his…hobby. Sylvain doesn’t always date to kill—else the body count would be much higher. Most of the time, he lets them go with little more than a broken heart.

No, the thrill comes from the absolute betrayal on their faces. The cheating and the killing are just a means to that end, and since they’re all after either his money or his looks or both, that makes his game easier and the punchline sweeter.

This time, though…

He vaguely considers the possibility he’s being played at his own game, and the thought fills him with something too complex for him to put a name to, buried deeper than the corpses in his wake and more foreign than the voice of his conscience.

“Here we are!” They come to a stop in front of a line of food vendors. “Do you have vegetarians?” he inquires, jumbling several versions of the same question together. 

“…What?” Felix deadpans.

“Do you eat vegans or food allergies? I mean, what do you like to eat?” Sylvain finally manages to articulate. “We’ll get whatever you like.”

Felix sends him a withering look, then splits off to browse the options while Sylvain reserves them a small table. It’s not Sylvain’s fault his task gives him ample time to watch his date wander the stalls.

Despite the way his clothes hug it, Felix’s figure is a continuing subject of curiosity. Sylvain had copped a good feel for it already and he determines that while the clothes express a svelte outline, they also obscure a solid, wiry build. He speculates inconclusively whether it’s a demand of Felix’s work or if Felix is just a gym rat. Nonetheless, he appreciates the sleek, natural grace that Felix maintains about him even while standing in line.

Felix comes back with six of the spiciest lamb skewers Sylvain has never tried eating and splits half of them with him.

“Thanks,” Sylvain says brightly with horrifically misplaced gratitude.

Not three minutes later, Sylvain is crying. Fat globules of saltwater dribble down his face, and he isn’t sure why because it’s not like he can feel the inside of his mouth anymore. Felix judges him from across the table, methodically using his teeth to pick segments of lamb off the skewer. Sylvain stares in incredulous disbelief as Felix calmly masticates what he would describe as an edible volcanic eruption. His eyes follow the morsel as it bobs down the scandalously pale throat.

“You’re not human,” Sylvain accuses.

Felix’s mouth curves wickedly as his canines sink into another piece. He rolls it onto his tongue, pushing it around a little before he starts chewing, lips closed but still smirking. There is simply no way any of that isn’t deliberate, Sylvain thinks. The only way someone can eat something that spicy without so much a wince must mean they come from the fires of hell itself. Felix licks his lips, so perfectly on cue, he might have read Sylvain’s thoughts.

Sylvain slowly brings his half-eaten portion back to his mouth. The mere proximity of the thing causes his eyes to water anew and he swears he can taste it a good two inches before it comes in contact with his tongue. Or maybe that’s the lingering burn from the pieces he’s already eaten. It doesn’t really matter, because this is clearly a challenge and he’s not going to back down from it on a _date_.

It should be fine, right? If he can’t feel his mouth anymore, shouldn’t that make it easier to eat?

Maybe he is a little bit too eager; he bites off an ambitious chunk with the logic that the fewer bites he takes, the less he’ll have to do deal with the spiciness. Wrong. Molten lava fills his mouth and he hastily makes sloppy attempts to chew so he can swallow it as soon as possible. Wrong again. As it turns out a poorly chewed piece of meat is much harder to swallow and it stalls near the back of his throat, which his stupid throat reacts to by trying to squeeze it up his airway. It fails, obviously, but enough _hellfire vapor_ flies into his pipes that he breaks down into hacking coughs.

Felix chuckles but twists open a bottle of blissfully cold water as if he expected this to happen, and Sylvain is too busy struggling to stay alive to care about the shit-eating grin on his face. He plucks the remaining skewers out of Sylvain’s hand and replaces them with blessed icy water, watching with not-at-all veiled amusement as Sylvain proceeds to guzzle the entire thing.

“What is your stomach lining made out of?” Sylvain gasps, taking Felix’s water too since Felix is kind enough to nudge it pityingly at him.

“Your body gets used to processing what you eat,” Felix says conversationally, polishing off the food—the lava from hell in food form—he rescued from Sylvain. “You’re probably just used to like cheese or something.”

“So…this is a game to you!” Sylvain glowers playfully. “Can’t imagine you’ve ever lost, eating this stuff like it’s candy.”

“I’ve lost once.”

“Oh? There’s someone out there who’s more of a demon than you?”

Felix’s grin darkens. “Something like that,” he says, putting the empty skewers down. “Boars would eat anything.”

“Hm.” Sylvain knows a complicated subject when he sees one; he can cold read it in the way Felix’s tone steels with a hint of bitterness and he shifts ever so slightly in his seat to a more defensive stance. The fact that he’s vaguely interested in what that is about is already off brand for him; normally he doesn’t give two shits what other people’s problems are unless he just wants to torment them with it. However, he steers clear of it for now. “Well, color me impressed. You really put me on the spot.”

“What do you mean?”

Sylvain flashes his signature winning smile. “Let’s go play the carnival games.”

The inside of his mouth is still on fire, but it becomes marginally more bearable when there are distractions. Felix has a swift, crisp gait that Sylvain can match if he quickens his long, lazy strides just a little bit. He seems to tolerate the presumptuous hold Sylvain had around him before, so when Sylvain does it again, he pulls in tighter, resisting the urge to be more ambitious because, _damn_, that compact lithe waist fits so perfectly in his grasp. It’s just too bad Sylvain doesn’t date for keeps.

Sylvain likes to think he has good physical coordination. He can expect to get a few prizes at carnival games, even if many of them involve some degree of luck, and usually, either his prowess or the prizes gain him favor with his date.

It has…questionable effect on Felix. He stands next to Sylvain, arms crossed, cradling a Gible plush that Sylvain acquired earlier in the crook of his elbow, while Sylvain tries to bounce some ping-pong balls into little glass bowls floating over a pool of water. Boredom radiates from him in palpable and highly distracting waves.

“There is a _lot_ of luck to this,” Sylvain says defensively.

“Fuck your luck then. I don’t want a goldfish.”

“Rude.”

They don’t get a goldfish, much to Felix’s relief.

“Are you sure you don’t want to try?” Sylvain prompts because Felix has yet to participate in anything.

Felix scoffs. “There’s nothing impressive or fun about a game that’s mostly luck.”

“We can play one that’s based on skill. How about that dart-throwing game?”

The dart board game is straightforward: throw darts at the boards. The targets are arranged in layers with increasing distance and decreasing target size, and one of the rows moves. The target circles are layered and have colors indicating how many points they’re worth, but Sylvain doesn’t care to read them. He is actually familiar with this game; he‘s memorized the muscle movement to land it somewhat reliably on the closest row of targets, though how close it gets to the center can be…variable.

He offers for Felix to go first with a dramatic flourish of politeness.

Felix shoves the Gible into Sylvain’s arms and picks up the first of the darts, testing its weight in his hand. It flips a few times in the air before dancing over his knuckles, finally coming to rest perfectly balanced on one finger. Another calculated flip, and it’s between the first and middle fingers. Then, following a quick, deft flick of his wrist, the dart lands on the edge of the innermost circle of the closest target.

“Wow,” Sylvain blinks.

Felix shoots him an unimpressed glance and picks up another dart. This one gets one experimental flip before he measures and makes his throw, nailing the center ring of the second row.

Later, Sylvain will think back and wonder why he ignored this egregious warning sign, but for now, he watches Felix’s movements with rapt fascination as the darts fall one after another on their marks. Felix is aiming for the farthest ones now, and his accuracy only improves while the remaining darts dwindle. It’s oddly mesmerizing; the wrist motion is clean, deliberate, and Sylvain’s admiration went straight to his crotch with every _thump_ of metal hitting cardboard.

“If you score this many points again you can choose from the largest prizes,” the booth helper enthusiastically informs them, and Sylvain automatically hands the guy a bill for another stack of darts.

Felix rolls his eyes. “I don’t care about prizes.”

“I do,” Sylvain says, pointing over their heads. “Look at how huge those cat plushies are!”

Felix follows Sylvain’s finger and sees that they are indeed giant cat plushies, but that has absolutely no bearing on his concession to throw the second cluster of darts. None. Zilch.

Sylvain sidles up to Felix, hands roaming brazenly along and around his hips. The insolence goes unpunished, so he presses himself flush against Felix’s back. “I can see why you like games of skill,” Sylvain purrs, savoring the way Felix’s body moves against him, the layers of clothing between them teasing the imagination.

Felix isn’t the least bit fazed by this disruption, even if the swell in Sylvain’s pants makes its impudence known. “Throwing darts at stationary paper targets isn’t skill,” he retorts, barely making a pretense of effort now that he’s accustomed to the weight of the projectiles.

“Sure, it is. The whole point of this game is to impress your date.”

“_Ah_,” Felix lilts silkily, throwing the last of the darts. He leans into Sylvain, immodestly heedless of the conspicuous bulge digging into his back, and then cants his head, coy and sarcastic. “Well? Are you impressed?”

“Wha—I…Y-yes,” Sylvain replies intelligently, circulation migrating too southernly for his brain to salvage the tables turning on him. He walked into that one, and his arms feel strangely bereft as Felix goes to collect his reward: an impressively large gray cat plush.

The cat comes with its own backpack, which Felix slings over one shoulder as the two of them traverse the rest of the fair. The late afternoon sun shines warmly over the last area to welcome them: rides.

“Don’t you dare suggest tunnel of love,” Felix threatens, though he doesn’t look at all dangerous with a giant kitten looming over his shoulder.

“Heh, no worries about that. I’m not fond of cramped, watery, and dark places,” Sylvain says, and he ignores the arch of Felix’s eyebrow. “But I highly recommend the hot air balloons.”

“You’re not afraid that I might push you off?”

“I trust you.”

It’s a line Sylvain says often, and it slips off his tongue easily with as much (or little) sincerity behind it as all the other times he’s said it. The reaction that crosses Felix’s expression, though, perplexes him. He reads consternation, vulnerability, frustration, one blurring after the other so quickly that he second-guesses himself by the time Felix arrives at the last one: muted distrust.

They fall into mutual silence as Sylvain contemplates this, and they’re stepping into the basket by the time he realizes Felix must be doing the same. However, the quiet between them is—strangely enough—comfortable, and he doesn’t interrupt it.

The secret is, most of the things Sylvain does at a funfair is to reel in his date, but the slow meandering drift across the sky is for himself. He even times it perfectly this trip; the sun dips burnished saffron over the horizon, igniting the clouds in wispy flames. Felix’s silhouette leans just inside his view, elbow propped haphazardly on the lip of the basket.

He abhors the idea of destiny, but how could he not suspect this as some sort of cosmic prank to mock his contempt for fate? It baffles him how easily he became enamored, and he struggles to assign it an explanation that doesn’t spite himself. The logical course of action is to murder Felix for unearthing these confusing and conflicting ruminations, but he just can’t summon the _malice._

Surely the Devil is laughing at him now, having sent His favorite muse to punish his hubris or reward his service; he doesn’t care which, and it may well be both. Rarely does he harbor such infatuations; never has he _wanted_ without the undertow of revulsion and antipathy. He hopes it will pass; he hopes it won’t.

“You’ve been running your mouth until now. What are you thinking about?” Felix finally asks. The wind sends the loose strands of his hair everywhere, but his gaze matches the sunset as it spans the treetops below. There is something simultaneously unguarded yet impassive about him, like a divine arbiter casually passing judgement from the impunity of the heavens. It’s poetic, picturesque, and maybe even…

Sylvain leans on the ledge next to him. He’s still contemplating the odd lack of animosity he feels, and how genuine interest is foreign and frightening. “I’m thinking about how much I love the view. About how nice it is to just sit up here, above the world. What about you?”

Felix considers a moment, and answers with unexpected candor, “I’m thinking about where I should go.”

Sylvain points to a spot, a cluster of houses. “There. We should go there.”

“I meant it metaphysically.”

“Yes, and I meant it physically.”

Felix looks like he has a biting remark ready, but he decides to take the bait. “Where is ‘there,’ exactly?” he gestures in the approximate direction Sylvain indicated.

“My house.”

**Author's Note:**

> Next Chapter Preview:
>
>>   
“And the one on your lips?”
>> 
>> The black stone’s dance halts as Felix brushes the scar in question with two of his fingers. There is something there, sorrow bordering on affectionate, nostalgia made sweeter by the knowledge of how bitterly it ends. “Wild night with an ex.”
>> 
>> “Ohoh, that sounds like a story.”
>> 
>> “A long story,” Felix agrees enigmatically in a tone that declares he’s not going to tell it.
>> 
>> Sylvain leans forward. “What happened with, you know, you two then?”
>> 
>> _Click._ A timbre of finality resonates pointedly through the black stone striking the board. “Dead-end relationship,” he emphasizes meaningfully, like a promise, or a threat, or a prophecy.  



End file.
